


We Were Soldiers

by seeyaloki



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1940s, M/M, POV Second Person, POV Steve Rogers, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-22 00:37:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7411478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeyaloki/pseuds/seeyaloki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You'll break your own heart some time, so no one else will have to live with the guilt of breaking it for you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Were Soldiers

**Author's Note:**

> Because Steve's heart belongs to Bucky, to heal or to break.

_A soldier doesn't fight because he hates what is in front of him_

* * *

 

You wish you could say a piece of him belongs to you.

It's late at night, somewhere in the distance a dog is barking and the streetlight is illuminating his skin, soft and still smooth.

You can guess the patches of skin, like the hollow of his collarbone, where the war will put its hands soon, leave ugly wounds and even uglier scars. You look at him, watching you like he's scared you'll run away, back to one of the recruitement centers because he doesn't know yet, what you did. He was busy pretending to be in love with a faceless girl because the world isn't ending just yet, and that's the one thing he's still good at. Before the only thing he'll _need_ to be good at is aiming and shooting when they need him to.

You look at his eyes, a piercing blue you hope you won't forget over time. You look at them and they take you in and you think that maybe, no. Maybe a piece of you belongs to _him_. Maybe everything you've ever been belongs to him, every punch and every hit, every bloody lip and every black eye. And maybe even every cough, every drop of sweat when the fever broke. You think maybe that belongs to him as well because he would take it all from you if he could, lock the sickness away in his own body so you could live the way he can.

You remember, 13 years old and he left school too early, teachers and parents mad and disappointed. You remember a knock on your door and you knew it was him even before your mother opened it. Red faced and sweating, bookbag slung carelessely over his shoulder. You think you knew, in that moment (and your mother knew as well, saw love and loyalty where you hadn’t found it yet) that maybe he wouldn’t die for you. But he wouldn’t let you do it alone, either.

And now you can’t even do the same. You can’t be there for him on the battlefield because he doesn’t want you to be. He was always selfish like that, wanted you to expose your wounds and scars so he could fix them but he would never let you do the same. Thought you weren’t strong enough to share the burden, share the hurt. Even though all you’ve been doing your whole life is taking the punches meant for people who don't deserve them.

You are both soldiers. Maybe _you_ even more than him. You fight because you want to, because it’s right. He fights because he _has_ to. Because they’ll make him. Because _you_ made him. Because maybe he loves you more than he’s supposed to and he couldn’t let you fight on your own.

His uniform fits like a glove. Broad shoulders you know even better than your own. There’s no smile. There’s no reason for one. Tomorrow he’ll ship out overseas, to a country he doesn’t know. To fight there.

(to die there)

You don’t wonder if he’ll miss you because you know he will. But not as much as you’ll miss him. You always needed him more than he needs you but he’s never admitted that. Not even when you were angry and you were yelling at him, begging him to leave. He never did. He never left and he never told you why. Maybe because he knew, that you couldn’t possibly survive without him. But that'd you'd accept it if he left and never came back. 

Your mother told him once, a mere few days before you had to bury her, because even her last few breaths were powerful;

 _"You're always fighting for things you can't win, my boy. It terrifies me. Because you'll break your own heart some time, so no one else will have to live with the guilt of breaking it for you._ "

 _He_ won't let you break your own heart. And maybe you hate him for that. Because you never understood until your mother made you see it. He thinks it's his right. His privilige. No one is allowed to touch your heart except _him_. Even if the last thing he does is shatter it to pieces. You don't know if you mind. You don't know if you _can_. It was all his from the beginning, anyway.

He smiles at you now. You’ve been staring for so long and he loves the attention, always has. Since they were little kids and everyone on the schoolyard wanted to be friends with Bucky Barnes, wanted to belong to him. (he only ever wanted you. And it took you years to figure out just how much that means.)

He leans down, presses a kiss in your hair and you smile back, even though you’re angry. Not because he’s leaving you but because you can’t leave _with_ him. He leans his forehead against yours, breath on your skin and hands on your cheeks.

"That's all you're getting. Save the rest for when I get back.”

It's a promise he can't make. But you survived sickness and death and a whole bunch of other things you weren't supposed to walk away unharmed from. You're sure you can take this. Maybe it's not a promise but a wish. You don't believe in God and you don't believe in fate, life has taken too much from you for that. But you believe in _believing_. In something, in anything. In him.

You don’t say ‘I love you’, he already knows that.

You don’t say ‘take my heart’, he already did.

You watch (you're always watching him) as he salutes you, runs his hands down his coat. He walks out the door. He leaves and for the first time in your life it could be permanent.

You sit at the shaky table in the living room and you stay there until Brooklyn wakes up. Until you know Bucky's gone.

Your heart was never made for his. And he took it anyway. Maybe that’s the part that hurts the most.

There’s a candle on the coffeetable, burning bright even though the sun is peeking out from behind the tallest buildings in the city.

He used to blow them out. Because you were always weak and tired and fell asleep before he came home, curled up in the sheets and waiting for a kiss pressed to the back of your neck and strong arms around your waist.The candle’s still burning now, flame shaking and slowly melting.

And you wonder, for the briefest of moments, if this is what it feels like when your heart breaks.

* * *

_He fights because he loves what he left behind._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Quote by Mario Tomasello!


End file.
